Brain Buddies
by Order of the Aether
Summary: I'm an author. And that means that sometimes, when I talk to myself, the characters talk back. Apparently Tony Stark and Bruce Banner take research papers very seriously. No OC.


**A/N: Gotta say, it's fun to be able to write myself as myself. I'll go down in history as the Team Cap-er who isn't mad at Tony Stark, and this is proof of our truce. And just for the record** — **yes, I am actually writing that paper as we speak. Wish me luck, guys.**

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 **Brain Buddies**

It's Week 4, Day 2, of an eight-week plan to write a research paper. I've skimmed around in encyclopedias (libraries have surprisingly few of those nowadays); I've batted some topic ideas in the air like a cat with a string. I've accumulated a stack of books and put them between the banisters of the handrail to my room upstairs.

As of yet, I still haven't read them. Their thickness alone is daunting—titles like Primal Teen, Turning Stones, and To the End of June keep me feeling like they're piers into the vast wasteland of information I somehow have to navigate to bring back the Golden Fleece. And there are whole libraries of books like these? Give me a break.

It's the first week of November, and I already feel like I'll be at this "to the end of June." And what am I doing?

"Procrastinating," remarks Tony Stark, sauntering into the lab I've made for him in my brain. (Said lab looks exactly like his lab in the Tower. What, you think I could create a better one?) In his hand is something that looks like a screwdriver from a sci-fi convention, and he flicks it at me accusingly.

"Although you're gonna have to try harder if you'll achieve my level of genius with that level of sloth," he rambles on. "Have you tried coffee? You should try coffee. Stuff works wonders. And start staying up all night for several weeks in a row, you might make a JARVIS."

I snort and massage my forehead, slouching lower in the chair. "Bad advice aside," I gripe in reply, "I think JARVIS would resent that statement."

"Oh, he does," Tony answers with a crisp and pointed turn to one of his holographic monitors. "He's complaining as we speak."

"Sure he is. Tell him I said hi." I sit up a little straighter in my imaginary chair. "Can I borrow a laptop?"

"If you want to be old-fashioned like that, sure," he retorts with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"Thanks. Your generosity knows no bounds."

Unfortunately, am not actually in the Tower bantering with Tony Stark, and unfortunately, I do not actually have a Stark-brand laptop to pick up. I am instead in the office at my own house in America somewhere, staring at the monitor of a Dell PC. And I very much do not have an intelligent AI to give me a figurative hand.

"Fantabulous," I grumble in the part of my mind that nobody can hear, and pull up a new tab. My web browser is decorated with a laurel wreath of bookmarks I'd accumulated over the past two weeks—mostly links to indexes on EBSCO for periodical magazines I'll never be able to access. After all, not every publication ever is carried by libraries.

"Encyclopedias, for instance," I snark to myself, and grin at my own brilliance.

"Griping at the task won't get any of it done," Bruce reprimands in his quiet voice, and I sit up a little straighter. The round glasses perched on his nose somewhat soften the effect of the doctor's glare, but his message gets across anyway. "Tell me what you've got so far."

Not about to argue with him, I pull up the sites on my imaginary laptop. "To be honest," I admit, "it's not much. I've got several indexes and two links to child development encyclopedias that I might not be able to get except by purchase."

He treads silently over from the lab bench and hovers over my shoulder, silently offering his full attention, so I continue. "The little booklet from my school suggests that I write down 'limiting questions' to narrow the direction of my research, but I'm still playing with the topic sentence. I have two."

"Settle on one," he instructs. "Which do you have the most research towards?"

"This one." I show him my notebook—the same that literally sits by my left arm back in the real world. I can see the shift of his eyes as he reads, _the influence of cycling through multiple homes on the behavior and self-image of foster children_.

I watch his eyebrows go down, and then up again. He hums in thought. "And you have questions toward this?"

"Lots," I shrug, lowering the book. "I think I could crank out six or seven."

"Let me see you do it."

And then, I'm out of the imaginary lab, out of the hearing range of the characters bantering in my head. My brain clicks into gear, my fingers click on the mouse, and my fingers fly over the keyboard.

I've somehow gained the focus of a grisly old prospector in Sacramento, parceling out his portion of the creek-bed in hopes to pan out the nuggets of gold hidden in the slag. Now I'm taking string and drilling tiny stakes into the dirt like an archaeologist's grid, determined to know with precision that can be recorded in a book exactly where I found that flint of Mayan pottery from a bygone world.

And then, I hit something. A creek, a spring, the tip of a vein of gold ore, and yet it seems familiar. I continue to whip out questions, and the reason for the familiarity slowly dawns.

 _A child's understanding of family figures, reactive rebellion—_ didn't I write another paper on this before?

"Crap," I mutter silently, not from misfortune, but from urgency. Surely that document is still on this PC somewhere. I fly through the Open menu on the word processor—"Defying Rebellion"—there it is! But that was a crappy paper from two years ago. Where did I put my source material?

"Frick," I mutter through a grin, scrolling through the Open menu as one title after the other presents itself for display. I'm exuberant now. I copied entire articles off of the internet and saved them—here!

Never mind copyright laws, at least I still have them at my fingers.

Down goes my pick into the ore or my pan into the creed-bed sludge. One of the authors, Richards-Gustafson, heavily cited an M.D. whose article could answer two, no— _four_ of my questions.

"Dang it." I need this article. If it's an academic publication, there's the possibility it isn't open to the public. I'd hit that road-block before in a paper about ASL, and it killed my morale. I'd better have this article, or else.

I whip out the M.D.'s name into my Google search bar, copy and paste his article's title, hit enter, and hold my breath.

I click the first link that appears.

"Frick, frick, frick!" A pdf file of the entire publication sits right at my fingertips. My hands are shaking from elation as I hit download and bookmark the site. Success! First-hand research from an M.D.! And this guy has written dozens of articles. He's _beyond_ an accredited source. "Awesome!"

I have to tell somebody. Somebody brilliant, who will understand what I've found: that first vein of gold, that first spring of an underground river. But who do I know? Sherlock is too stand-offish. It's not really Bones or Becket's thing. I doubt that Spock will appreciate my excitement.

Oh wait. I do know somebody.

Two somebodies.

"Did you get something?" quizzes Bruce, who heard my mild expletives, leaving a small and important-looking chemistry experiment at the table to dash over to my chair. Even Tony spins in his seat and cranes his neck over a holographic screen to see.

"Yeah," I answer, breathless, and point out the pdf. A click of an imaginary button sets an imaginary printer whirring, and in moments I hold the imaginary publication in my hand.

"Good work," nods Bruce, having scrolled through the pdf file.

"Lucky break," Tony corrects him, having pulled it up on his own computers.

"Doesn't matter," I reply, tossing the stack of papers down on a spare tool-bench. "But for the record, Tony is right."

The electric energy of two geniuses in a room builds and gives my words and gestures a rapid pace as I bark out marching orders. "We'll use this as a foundation. Child development data, touches on issues of rebellion, written by an accredited M.D."

"Published in...1957?" Bruce quizzes me gently, pushing up his glasses. He knows as well as I do the need for more current information.

"It's fine," I assure him, beating the pages with my fingertips. "It's a foundation, and human brains can't have changed that much. We'll balance it out with more recent research. Articles, periodicals."

Tony has already stepped into the midst of his 3-D holograms and pulled up my index sites. "That's where these come in," he puts in, firing pages off to the printers in his lab.

"Exactly." I rush to retrieve the print-outs.

"You'll want personal experience," notes Bruce, leafing through the growing pile of professional research.

"Took care of that on the library run." I slap To the End of June on top of the pile.

"Check the bibliography at the end of the book," Tony fires off, his voice somewhere between a bark and a rapid stream of thoughts. "Sources, recommendations."

"Might help," agrees Bruce. "Makes up for the material you might not be able to access from..." He waves at the holograms of indexes.

"And what looks interesting, we request," I conclude, sweeping up a small blue sticky note a librarian gave me. "Good idea." After a moment to scan the book titles there I add, "If we could get a hold of Invisible Influences—"

Tony leaps onto the train of thought without so much as a breath. "Skim it. Anything that doesn't touch childhood development, ignore it." His fingers fly over a hologram screen.

"Exactly."

"Do we want to consider physiological factors...?" Bruce asks, almost timid, with an eyebrow raised at me. He knows that I'm young myself, and might be afraid that the topic is sensitive.

I wave off his fears with a shrug and produce a smaller book. "I have this thing," I assert, slapping Primal Teen onto the pile. "Might have something."

"That's a question," adds Bruce. Tony is still busy with a hologram. "Are we looking at children, or adolescents?"

I wring my lip in thought. I haven't considered the question before.

"Depends," I finally answer. "If my research leans toward more information on one or the other, I might have to narrow the topic to fit. Teendom adds a whole other factor in itself."

"Right." Bruce nods, and seems to be satisfied.

"Fired off a request to your friendly local librarian," announces Tony, strutting back into the conversation. He drops an old business card of mine onto the stack of books and articles. "Top it off with a cherry and an interview with the shrink—"

I snatch the card from him. Back in the real world, that same card is currently sitting under the tissue box by my bed. "She's a counselor, Tony," I correct him.

A little of my bravado is gone as I thumb the card. "And I have no guarantee I'll be able to get a hold of her."

Tony snorts, "Hell, it's worth a shot," and turns back to his tool-bench. "Maybe by the tail end of the whole project?"

Bruce is kinder. "The worst she can say is no," he assures me.

I think it over, pretending not to be relieved that they saw right through me. "Maybe," I acquiesces. Putting the energy back into my voice I add, "And maybe if I can get some foster families for interview—"

"I'll ring up Feathers," Tony volunteers cheerfully. Bruce shoots him a glare.

I grin. "I wish. Clint would be a lot easier to talk to."

Bruce turns to me and gives a kind look that's as warm as a hug. "Hey. You're going to do fine."

I smile and try to hide it, glancing at the tower of material we'd made—already a small monument in itself. "With you guys around? Maybe. Maybe I will."

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 **A/N: For anyone following my work, let this double as an apology for slow updates. A girl's got to choose her battles. Thanks to all for reading! Reviews are little nuggets of gold.**


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